The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

Essay On The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World

Magical realism refers to a stylistic technique that combines fantasy and what is real in a way that the reader will accept it as real. Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s, “Handsomest Drowned Man in the World,” is a magical story based on the fact that the dead man stunned the villagers by his size and beauty. In that regard, the villager’s disbelief at the size of the dead man is unique and even though they looked at him, there was to be no room for him in the villagers’ imaginations.

In the story, instances of magic in the real world include: the supposed changes in nature that was caused by the dead man becoming a subject of wonder and attracting people from far villages. The man is deemed responsible for the sea’s restlessness and steadiness makes the story seemingly unreal. The author also uses personification to enhance the reader’s feeling of magic by asserting that the sun was too bright to an extent that the flowers didn’t know which way to turn.

The village’s treatment of the handsomest drowned man compare to the villagers treatment of the old man in “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” in the sense that they both feature supernatural beings that surge into the lives of two separate villages. They spark different reactions, with the dead man being given a name and even personality with the villagers preparing a splendid send off for him and him changing the villages’ way of life in “The Handsomest Drowned Man in the World.”

In “A Very Old Man with Enormous Wings,” the poor angelic figure is treated as a freak who allowed others to benefit from him causing people to wonder about his identity. For instance, Elisenda, the wife of the family that profits from the angelic figure is relieved when the figure flies in the end.

The difference in the two men is evident when it comes to how the author challenges human attitudes. In the first story, the author explores how human beings mythologize and draw meaning of life through attaching stories and even legends on events and heroes. In the second story, the author explains how human beings’ desire to extract meaning is self-defeating and ludicrous. The villagers’ attention shifts to the presence of the angelic figure to an extent of them ignoring the actual figure(Pelayo 69).Hence, Marquez tries to assert that there is little meaning that can be found from the events, especially complex ones that befall human beings.